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He's Dying

“I figured it was my last chance to be somebody, to make something of my life,” Alex said. “So at thirty, during the war. I enlisted. I wanted to be an officer. It seemed like it was all stacked against me.”

Alex laid in his bed sunken and wasting away from a sickness no one could diagnose. It was unsettling seeing a man who just a few years ago stood six three and two hundred pounds. He still had massive hands and a barrel chest. Grey stubble covered his face like a burned forest.

The room was the bedroom of a small home purchased a couple of years earlier. Present was an odor like a load of soiled laundry. A light layer of dust covered everything. The sun struggled to cast its rays through water stained windows.

“What do you mean, Dad?” AJ said.

“When I went through the physical in basic training they asked me to do a deep knee bend. My knee was so swollen I could hardly walk on it. That disqualified me from OCS. In basic they all called me ‘Dad’ or ‘Pop.’ I was the oldest guy in my company; hell I was the oldest guy in the battalion. War is for young men made up by old men. They took care of me. There were things that a guy my age and with my knees couldn‘t do. Yeah, they were a great bunch of guys. I‘d like to see them all one more time before I go.”

“Don’t talk that way, Dad,” AJ said. “You’re going to be okay.”

“No I’m not, son. No I’m not.” Alex looked at a framed photo of himself taken when he was in the Army. “I’m only half the man now that I was then, maybe even less than that. It’s amazing what years of hard

living can do to you. Take care of yourself, son. Don’t let yourself go to hell.”

From Kenton Lewis: You Must Read This First To Know What The Heck Goes On Here

This site contains mostly fiction. Currently a novel is posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday entitled Beyond Beyond. It is broken down into short episodes between two and four pages each. Thus, if you enter on anything other than episode 1, it would be good the scroll down to find previous episodes.

The archives are full of short stories. Some short stories are very short, just one posting. Others are broken down into episodes also.

Every post contains 350 to 1,500 words.

Anyway, I hope you visit several times a week.

In addition, this site is free of promotions and advertising except for the sale of Kenton Lewis books. That's a hint. Otherwise just tuck a $20 bill in an envelop and email me for my address.

This Is He

Taken shortly after my beheading. I refused to give up coffee. "Not from my cold dead hands!"